In conjunction with The Mind Project, and with support from the National Science Foundation, we've put together a large collection of web-based applications that can be used to illustrate basic principles of human and non-human cognition. These are presented with tutorials, sample classroom activities, and movies that illustrate possible uses. Best of all, these are absolutely free.

The modules are listed below, with screenshots and brief descriptions of each. We then list the links to each downloadable file. Many of these applications require Java, found here.

This program lets students explore apparent motion phenomenon and test models of mapping between objects. In the applet, apparent motion occurs when a dot disappears from one location and reappears in another location.

Change Blindness occurs when a brief flash comes between two versions of a scene. This flash prevents the change from rising to the level of consciousness unless the person is actively attending to the object. The interesting aspect is that once the change is noticed, it seems so obvious. This program lets users trace out the pattern that the adopt when scanning through a blurred or low-contrast scene. Move the mouse to guide the circle and then click when you've found the change.

We form categories as part of everyday life. Sometimes this is good (these foods are all high in fat) while sometimes they can lead to societal problems (as in stereotypes and racism). This program allow students to explore how categories are created and how they affect our perception and judgments of images.

The Lateralizer is a tool for stimulus presentation and response recording in a divided visual field (DVF) paradigm, enabling students to investigate theories of asymmetries between the two cerebral hemispheres.

This project challenges the way students think about language, and invites
them to consider alternative views concerning the structure of language and the
nature of its components. Familiar concepts such as words and sentences are
replaced by abstract objects that contain the same informational content as more
familiar symbols such as words, but are novel and therefore introduce new ways
of thinking about semantic, phonemic and orthographic structure.

Students are introduced to an empirical approach to the study of intelligent systems and memory. In this demonstration, students experiment on their own working memories to test various models that describe how the contents of memory are matched to a test item.

Many decisions in life surround one of two possible alternatives (e.g. the
object on the x-ray is a tumor or it is not) and two possible choices (e.g. have
the painful surgery or do chemotherapy). In this experiment students explore the
tradeoffs that can occur when trying to detect a known signal.

This program lets students explore apparent motion phenomenon and test models of mapping between objects. In the applet, apparent motion occurs when a dot disappears from one location and reappears in another location.

Looking for a friend in a crowd, searching for a four-leaf clover and finding an
off-ramp exit sign are all examples of visual search in the real world. This
program allows students to create their own visual search experiments to explore
visual perception and memory phenomenon. Students have used this to explore
effects of familiarity, search asymmetries, top-down influences on perception
and the role of arousal on visual search.